8-17-12 – Deep Water Perch And Bluegill

With only a few hours in the afternoon to fish before the storm rolled in, we tried our best to make the most of the humid afternoon. Being 1 p.m., our hopes weren’t too high that the fish would be pounding. We hoped at best for a steady but slow bite. The morning is the best bite but with work and all, we did what we could.

Right off, we caught a few decent perch and surprising for this lake some deep water gills. We were targeting a 22-28 foot break along a weed line that has a soft sandy bottom. Being the middle of the day, we suspected that the fish would be holding in the weeds waiting until sunset when the would begin to feeding again.

As we moved around using the trolling motor, we found that the fish were very inactive and that the wind was causing us to have some serious issues. We hit all the usual spots that we know the fish to hold up in. They were there, just not hungry. We kept searching for pods of fish thinking that one might give us some solid action. Picking up a few here and there was frustrating after seeing all the fish on the screen!

After fishing for a few hours and catching a someslab perch, we made a big move to the other end of the lake. The wind was far worse and the fish were more scattered than the place we had just left. We gave it a shot for a bit but quickly decided to move back to the other end of the lake. As we were pulling up our lines I caught this nice bluegill out of 26 feet of water.

As the day wore on, the clouds darkened and we thought we were going to have to head out early. With a little disregard for the distant booms of thunder, the skies cleared back up and the fish turned on. At least for a bit. We caught fish for another hour before the next storm rolled in.

Overall it wasn’t a bad day. We caught a decent number of perch, some big gills, and one good bass. We found that moving the boat with the trolling motor or casting with a slow retrieve got the best results. The fish liked more crawler than you would think could fit on a hook with a little extra dangling!

We got in the truck with only a few minutes to spare before the skies let loose. It rained hard but only for a short bit. Too late, we were already on our way home to get ready for the next adventure.